Observed Signal · May 5, 2026 · Awards Announcement · Source: Digiday · Impact: 1/5 · Sentiment: Neutral
Digitas, Five Below, January Digital Win 2026 Future Leader Awards
Digiday announced the winners of the 2026 Future Leader Awards on May 5, 2026. The awards recognize emerging leaders (10 years of experience or less) across marketing, media, retail and agency roles. The announcement highlights profile winners including Ameera Masud (associate director of social strategy at Digitas), Cecilia Snider (Five Below) and Raquelle Kleiman (January Digital), and publishes a complete list of category winners spanning new categories such as Rising AI Leader and Rising Audio Leader. The winners were recognized for contributions including modernizing retail replenishment with AI, scaling affiliate practices into major growth engines, and translating online culture into audience engagement.
Industry recognition event listing emerging leaders; notable for talent/industry signaling but limited direct operational or technological impact on AdTech/MarTech.
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Key Takeaways & Evidence Grounding
- Digiday published the list of 2026 Future Leader Awards winners on 2026-05-05.
- Ameera Masud, associate director of social strategy at Digitas, won Rising Social Leader.
- Cecilia Snider won Rising Retail Leader for work modernizing Five Below’s replenishment strategy using AI and advanced analytics.
- Raquelle Kleiman won Rising Agency Leader after expanding January Digital’s affiliate practice (reported 400% growth) and driving notable client revenue gains.
- The announcement lists category winners across multiple new and existing categories (e.g., Rising AI Leader, Rising Audio Leader, Rising Content Marketing Leader).
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Digiday Future Leader Awards 2026 Finalists Announced
Digiday, together with Glossy and Modern Retail, published the list of finalists for the 2026 Future Leader Awards, which recognizes rising leaders with ten years of experience or less across marketing, media and product disciplines. Highlighted finalists include Seojoon Oh (senior product manager at Uber), Natasha Macri (senior director of marketing partnerships at Time) and Katie Zaro (omnichannel marketing manager at eos). The announcement describes finalists’ work—Seojoon Oh’s platforms supporting Uber’s $1.7 billion advertising business, Macri’s scaling of Time’s partnership pipeline and Zaro’s DTC site redesign and CRM gains—and lists nominees across multiple categories (e.g., product, media, content, AI, audio, e‑commerce, technology). The piece is an industry recognition of emerging talent shaping measurement, partnerships and omnichannel experiences.
Uber, Time and eos Are 2026 Future Leader Finalists
Digiday, Glossy and Modern Retail published the finalists for the 2026 Future Leader Awards, which recognize rising leaders with ten years of experience or less across marketing, product, media and related disciplines. Highlighted finalists include Seojoon Oh (senior product manager at Uber), who leads engineering teams building a first-party attribution system, a real-time KPI streaming hub and a semantic data layer that support Uber’s $1.7 billion advertising ecosystem and privacy-first marketing tools; Natasha Macri (senior director of marketing partnerships at Time), who runs Time’s U.S. pre-sale marketing engine and has scaled the publisher’s partnership pipeline and ad revenue; and Katie Zaro (omnichannel marketing manager at eos), who led a DTC website redesign, launched the brand’s first blog and grew email and SMS CRM performance. The article includes the full list of finalists across multiple Rising categories.
Digiday Announces 2026 Media Buying & Planning Finalists
Digiday published the list of finalists for the 2026 Digiday Media Buying and Planning Awards on June 2, 2026. Finalists span agencies, brands, publishers and technology vendors across categories including Media Campaign of the Year, Media Plan of the Year and Best Omnichannel Campaign. Highlighted nominations include Uber Advertising’s full‑funnel holiday campaign for Diageo; the NFL and CBS/Paramount+ for the “Count on Sundays” 360 campaign; and WPP Media & Mazda for the docuseries “First to the Finish,” which reported 16 million minutes watched and nearly 587,000 full-series viewers. The awards also feature new AI-related categories (Best AI Platform; Best Creative Use of AI; Best Use of AI in Planning/Search) and recognize campaigns using omnichannel, CTV, DOOH and data-driven tactics.
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